Concert tickets went on sale at noon $( t = 0 )$ and were sold out within 9 hours. The number of people waiting in line to purchase tickets at time $t$ is modeled by a twice-differentiable function $L$ for $0 \leq t \leq 9$. Values of $L ( t )$ at various times $t$ are shown in the table below.
| $t$ (hours) | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| $L ( t )$ (people) | 120 | 156 | 176 | 126 | 150 | 80 | 0 |
(a) Use the data in the table to estimate the rate at which the number of people waiting in line was changing at 5:30 P.M. $( t = 5.5 )$. Show the computations that lead to your answer. Indicate units of measure.
(b) Use a trapezoidal sum with three subintervals to estimate the average number of people waiting in line during the first 4 hours that tickets were on sale.
(c) For $0 \leq t \leq 9$, what is the fewest number of times at which $L ^ { \prime } ( t )$ must equal 0 ? Give a reason for your answer.
(d) The rate at which tickets were sold for $0 \leq t \leq 9$ is modeled by $r ( t ) = 550 t e ^ { - t / 2 }$ tickets per hour. Based on the model, how many tickets were sold by 3 P.M. ( $t = 3$ ), to the nearest whole number?